Wiser Voices Than Mine Speak Truth

Posted on by under education, Free Press Issues, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I have written a few times about the current attempts to ‘dumbify’ the next generation of Americans by governors, school boards and others whitewashing, covering up, and downright lying about the history of this nation.  But nobody says it better than Dan Rather & Elliot Kirschner, so here is their take …

Teach The Truth

Ominous lessons from Florida

By Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner

22 July 2023

Kwame Akoto-Bamfo‘s “Nkyinkim” sculpture, dedicated in memory of victims of the Transatlantic slave trade, at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama (Photo credit: Raymond Boyd)

I was born 66 years after slavery was legally abolished by the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Not exactly ancient history. Today, that’s how long ago the Eisenhower administration was, or Elvis Presley’s first number one hit.

And the legacies of slavery — lynchings, Jim Crow, disenfranchisement — were woven tightly into the American tapestry of my youth. They still echo with us. Loudly and persistently. No matter how much some would want us to ignore the clamor of justice.

As much as we wish American history were different, tragedy is part of our reality. We do a grave disservice to future generations if we sanitize the truth. People can behave horribly. Societies that profess noble values can countenance violent bigotry. We can either look back from whence we have come with clarity, or we can try to muddy the roots of the present and weaken ourselves in the process.

This week, the Florida State Board of Education reworked its standards for teaching Black history. The changes come in response to the state’s so-called “Stop W.O.K.E. Act.” Passed last year, it limits training and education around issues of race, sex, and other criteria for systemic injustice. At its heart is a core belief that has animated right-wing culture warriors: that people alive today should not be made to feel bad or even uncomfortable by the sins of the past. The thinking goes, that was a long time ago.

But of course it really wasn’t. And the legacies of the past live on. And if we don’t learn from history, we are bound to repeat it.

Proponents of these new standards, especially their biggest cheerleader, Governor Ron DeSantis, say they promote teaching positive achievements of Black Americans in history. No problem there. It’s when it comes to the other side of the coin that we have a big issue — the new lessons seem intent on downplaying the horrors of the Black experience. In other words, once again, the truth. The truth revealed by hard facts.

One passage that has gotten a lot of attention is for middle schoolers. It states they should learn that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” The danger of this narrative is striking. A system that brutalized, raped, and killed human beings while stealing their freedom and denying their humanity is rotten to its core. That enslaved people were able to find resilience and build lives in some form is a testament to their courage and spirit. There is no “other side” to the story of slavery.

It is true that these new standards, as horrific as they are, would have been a great improvement over what I learned in my segregated middle school. We have come a long way. But that was because of the bravery of civil rights leaders and activists who fought, sometimes with their lives, for a full realization of American values. Any receding from progress — as this surely is — represents a threat to our democracy. We have been strengthened as a nation, all of us, by a national movement to right the wrongs of our past.

It is tempting to try to ignore DeSantis. He is a bully. He wants a reaction. He uses cruelty and disingenuity to garner headlines. He feeds off the anger of his adversaries.

But he also has power. And the lessons of history tell us that we should not ignore would-be autocrats.

The generation that lived through the fights over civil rights in the 1950s and ‘60s is passing away, much as the generation that remembered the Civil War did during my own youth. The loss of the earned knowledge of living through and fighting for change is profound.

This makes it all the more important that when we teach history, we teach the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Or as close to it as is humanly possible.

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40 thoughts on “Wiser Voices Than Mine Speak Truth”

  1. Pingback: Wiser Voices Than Mine Speak Truth – THE FLENSBURG FILES

  2. It’s all so gross. Repukkkes saying slavery was beneficial for the slaves, and today on Faux Fake Fox, apparently, paraphrasing – “the Jews who had skills did very well in the holocaust”. My blood pressure is still seething. 😦 xx

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Jill, I caught The View today. They ripped DeSantis a new one. Two reasons – his creating an environment where this kind of “Gone with the Wind definition of slavery” teaching is going and his saying on camera that it wasn’t his fault.

    Really? Acting like an autocratic weasel is not good form for a leader. I saw in another article that his campaign team is telling donors they are going to let “Ron be Ron.” Based on the above example, that is not a good thing.

    To be frank, DeSantis has been on my radar for awhile, before he became governor. He was the Marjorie Taylor Greene before she came to the forefront. As a Congressman who sat next to DeSantis for two years said, DeSantis did not speak to him at all. And, he was in the same party.

    Keith

    Liked by 3 people

    • Ahhhh … the ladies of The View are really good at that! I used to watch it a lot, but haven’t seen it lately. Is Whoopee G still on it? I always enjoyed her! Yes, DeSantis deserves every bit of the criticism he’s receiving. He is purposely destroying Florida in hopes that it will give him an extra push in next year’s presidential election, but does it not occur to him that the majority of this nation don’t share his views? Fortunately, I don’t think DeSantis has a snowball’s chance of winning the primary, let alone the general election, but that said, I don’t like any of the competition one bit better, certainly not Trump! I think the only two Republican candidates who have a shred of decency are Asa Hutchinson and Chris Christie.

      Liked by 1 person

    • Not surprised about that last anecdote, Keith. Ron is not only a scary wanna-be autocrat, he also has zero likability and personality. (The two are perhaps connected.)

      Like

  5. My biggest fear is that I might have to kill again. Murder is the path to madness. State sanctioning is no shield. I have read statistics that only 3 out of 100 humans can purposefully kill another and 2 of them are already insane. I don’t think either of you fit the bill.

    Liked by 1 person

      • Thankfully there is something inside us that makes us unable to kill each other without severe mental distress. I think that in the situation you describe your instinct would be to protect the child even at the cost of your own life rather than consider taking the life of the threat. I do believe that it would be an afterthought as the threat diminishes. But you wouldn’t act on it. 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

  8. It’s very sad that something like education and history have become so politicized and used to win votes. I think to avoid repeating history, we must acknowledge and recognize and learn from it.

    Liked by 2 people

    • It IS sad … and dangerous. We need to give our children the best education possible, but not one based on lies and whitewashed history. This nation has some good things in its past, but also some terrible ones including genocide, slavery, and even today we are making history with our bigotry in taking away the rights of women and the LGBTQ community. How can we simply sweep all of that under the rug and yet hope to create a brighter future??? The short answer is that we cannot! Sigh.

      Liked by 3 people

  9. Ron “The Sanitizer” de Santis needs a personal awakening. The “War on Woke” is as vicious and inhumane as Hitler’s war on the Jews. He likes to think he is doing the white race a service, but what he is really doing is dehumanizing Black people — and people of other colours — all over again, reraping the raped! This workd is bad enough without Hitler-Wannabees gumm8ng up the works.
    Someone needs to put an iron brace around his neck and drag him in chains naked through the streets of Miami. Let him see what a bit of slavery is like!

    Liked by 3 people

    • I agree with all you say. DeSantis makes me literally feel ill … it would not surprise me to find that he’s a closet member of the KKK at this point. Perhaps he genuflects to Hitler every night before going to bed. I am only thankful that I don’t live in Florida, for I think I would have a strong desire to murder the man!

      Liked by 3 people

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